1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image-forming system and an image-forming apparatus included in the image-forming system, and more particularly, concerns an image-forming system that needs an preparing action for image formation in an image-forming apparatus, and an image-forming apparatus included in the image-forming system.
2. Description of the Related Art
An image-forming system, which includes an image-forming apparatus for forming an image on an image-forming medium and a terminal device capable of communicating with the image-forming apparatus, is known. Some of the image-forming apparatus in the image-forming system need a warm-up operation when forming an image on the image-forming medium, such as warming a heat fuser to a specific temperature and above for fixing ink on the image-forming medium by energizing a heater of the heat fuser in the case of laser printers, or melting hot-melt ink by applying heat of an energized heater in the case of inkjet printers.
In such image-forming apparatus, the energization to the heater is made on the basis of a predetermined energizing condition. More specifically, after the image-forming apparatus have received image data from a terminal device such as a computer, a power-saving mode, in which the energization to the heater is stopped, is cancelled to start the energization to the heater. When a certain time has passed after the completion of image formation, the power-saving mode is started again.
However, a certain period of time is required after the start of the energization to the heater until the image-forming apparatus enter an image-formation ready state. Therefore, if the heater-energization is started after the reception of image data, the image-forming apparatus cannot promptly start image formation. On the other hand, it is also possible to constantly hold the image-forming apparatus in an image-formation ready state by continuously or intermittently energizing the heater; however, this may increase power consumption excessively.